The Catalans: A Novel (20 page)

“So I understand. Still, I have great hopes of him.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

M
ARCEL
D
UMESNIL
was the family’s one contact with the arts. He was a writer, and he had married Louise, Marinette’s Louise. The family regarded him with mixed feelings, for although they could not be proud of their connection with him as a person, yet there was the fact that he was a writer, and that, in a country where even the most depraved of literary hacks is regarded with some degree of respect, that weighed enough with them for them to be able to say, not without complacence, “Louise and her husband Marcel, Marcel Dumesnil, you know, the writer.”

Xavier and Aunt Margot had never been able to stand him for a moment, but the others were sufficiently resigned to the marriage to be quite civil to him, and in this instance Alain sided with the rest of the family: he could never feel strongly enough about Louise to dislike Marcel (in a few more years Louise would have grown still more desperate and would have done still worse for herself) and indeed although he had seen very little of him—they lived in a house behind Collioure, in the hills, far from Saint-Féliu—he even had a kind of sympathy for him. The feeling did not amount to liking or to fellowship: it was difficult to define, but it was real enough to evoke a kindness in Dumesnil, who more than once told his wife that Alain was the only one of her family he would pull out of a quicksand, in the happy event of their all being plunged in it up to their necks. It was real enough, too, for Alain to have kept silent when he could have exposed Dumesnil to the brutal mockery of the family, the despised bourgeoisie. It was a curious story: Dumesnil had begun writing early and his first work, the usual autobiographical novel, had enjoyed a surprising success. It had not sold a great many copies, but coming out at a time of unparalleled dearth it had been well reviewed and it had even been awarded a literary prize, a reputable literary prize. At first this had astonished the young Dumesnil, but soon his changing estimate of his own worth, catching up with his success and overpassing it, made all this appear normal, and he wrote his second novel with a light heart and a running pen. It was little more than a rearrangement of the first, and as the first had been almost entirely derivative this imitation of an imitation made his publishers shake their heads for a long time in anxious doubt: however, they accepted the manuscript and printed it. “This is easy,” thought Dumesnil, hurrying on with his third book. He was quite sure that he had found the formula for writing novels, and when he sent off this third manuscript he waited for the friendly, enthusiastic letter of acceptance with a sense of agreeable anticipation: no doubt, no qualms.

The rejection, the prompt and unequivocal rejection, was a horrible shock. He was married by this time; he was set in his delicious role of the Literary Wonder and already he had gone too far along the road of superiority, too far in his expressed contempt for the bourgeoisie to retreat: nothing could sustain him in his dangerous attitude but continuing success. But the second shock, the truly disintegrating shock that came but one post later was a copy of the reader’s report that a friend in the publisher’s office had procured for him: this report and the office memoranda pinned to it showed him a naked opinion, unglozed by the least civility. “This MS is really too amateurish .
. . There is nothing left of the unconscious freshness, the appealing naivety which was the only merit of the first book and the only reason for tolerating its tedious, bumptious, adolescent cleverness: this quality, such as it was, had almost entirely vanished in the second novel, and now there is not the least trace of it. This piece of work is even worse than the last—wholesale plagiarism. M. Hertzog was mistaken when he thought that there was a possibility of the development of a mature talent . . . the public is very gullible, but not to the extent of swallowing this . . . cut our losses.” And the final damning note scribbled by the head of the firm, “Nothing more to do with this man.”

It was a terrible blow, all the worse because with the unsubmerged part of his mind he agreed with the criticism. Yet he had been so sure. He had been quite certain that they were deceived. When he had seen these men he had played the part so well, he thought—the impulsive, sincere young writer. But they had watched him behind their politeness: they had not been deceived, and perhaps they had laughed at him afterward.

He did not succumb at first. He went through the manuscript: worked hard upon it. Naivety had impressed them. He spent hours and hours in his room, putting in naivety and charm. But now he was uncertain, all adrift: was this intellectual or was it just dirty? Could you be naive and still say sodomy? He could not tell any longer, and when the new typescript was ready he looked at it with haggard desperation.

No one would publish it. He tried again, sending it out under an assumed name, hoping to pass as a beginner once more, a new young man with possibilities: but it was no good.

Still his efforts did not cease: he began a new book, and he worked as he had never worked in his life. Freshness, originality, and ingenuous clarity were his aims; but now all was tentative, doubtful, unsatisfactory, and as the book progressed it went slower and slower. He was afraid of finishing it, and it dragged slowly to a standstill.

But in the meanwhile there was the continual necessity of keeping up his position, of defending himself, and with a shock he realized that the good opinion of his plain and stupid wife was vital to him, as vital as her inherited competence; he had thought he despised her. As he had never fundamentally believed in his own talent he had naturally despised those who did look up to him, and yet as he possessed a sour and lively vanity he despised those who did not. Or more exactly, although he felt himself to be a genuinely superior man, he believed that his superiority lay in a general intellectuality rather than in any one particular talent: his writing was a “front,” a weapon against the profane. It was not necessary for him to believe in the “front” so long as he could believe in what it was intended to guarantee. The writing could be bogus, admitted to be bogus, so long as the overman was there. And so to move from this shifting ground of half-deception to outright falsehood was easy for him: he was hardly conscious of any change.

At one time he had been employed in a printing house, a firm that handled pornographic books, the pamphlets and “literature” of cranks and charlatans, the catalogues of accessory shops: he paid them to set up a title page with his name on it and this he had bound with the body of a Swedish novel. He presented the result as a translation of his own work. This was a great success, in some ways greater than the triumph of producing a new book of his own which anybody could read; and he found to his surprise that it gave him nearly as much satisfaction. It was the reaction of Louise that interested him most, that was most important to him. Perhaps she had not known of the decline in her devotion: perhaps she did not consciously redouble those innumerable ministering attentions that buoyed him up: but Marcel was vividly aware of the difference. Once again it was the finger on the lips and the whisper “Marcel is working,” the shielding and the cosseting, “Marcel must not be upset,” the willing submission to his vagaries: above all, the religious subjection of her mind to his.

Six months later he repeated the experiment, this time using the body of an English book: it seemed to him particularly suitable because like his own novel it had the names of streets in Paris scattered up and down its pages. Like so many writers he was a man of little or no formal education and he did not think there was any danger in all this. He knew no foreign language himself; he had a quicker intelligence than those around him; and it followed that he did not believe that anyone else could really read English or Swedish. They might for examinations; but not in real life.

Then it was verse. This was a little harder to explain, but the fact was that he did not choose to publish verse in France at present, and while translation was evidently not the same thing still it was something, and they importuned him so . . . And of course one has to think of America. It was harder to explain, but it was worth the risk, for poetry covers all idleness, all lack of present success, all dependence, all rudeness, all eccentricity: poetry need never wash or shave, may lie with its neighbor’s wife, drink gin, haunt foreigners: poetry is already clothed in immortality; poetry prophesies, speaks holy; may abuse God.

But unknown to Marcel then, the stranger Alain, far away, had worked with English colleagues and with Indians: he had attended conferences on tropical medicine in India, England, and America, and he had read papers to the learned societies there; he used the language almost daily in his work. And so when he stood in front of the bookshelves in the Dumesnils’ house, looking by express invitation at Marcel’s works, he opened the pages to find a language nearly as familiar as his own.

Dumesnil’s choice had been wretchedly inept: it was a book that had run into hundreds of editions, and it was as well that Alain’s back was turned to the room, for in the first moment of recognizing the novel (he had read it in Singapore and again on a never-ending train that took him to Lahore) he was unable to govern his countenance. He flapped back the title page to make sure that he was not mistaken; then he glanced furtively into the French volume with the same name and compared the opening phrases. He was conscious of fat, commonplace Louise behind him, flushed and almost pretty in the expectation of his praise, and of her husband, preening in the background, a prickly, surly, difficult fellow, but pathetic in his insecurity. Pathetic, at all events, to Alain, who did not have to see much of him.

It was not in fact a very difficult situation to carry off: all he had to do was to take no notice and to say the usual polite words. It was, as one might say, a negative duty, but in his own estimation he accomplished it rather well: he gave a certain amount of pleasure where he could have spread certain misery, and when he went away he felt inclined to be pleased with the object of his benevolence.

In spite of a strong temptation to tell Aunt Margot (it would so have delighted her) he had said nothing to anyone, and now, these years later, as he went on his difficult errand, his errand of drawing information from Marcel, he could not refrain from glowing with smug self-satisfaction at his former restraint. If he had indulged himself then, he would be without a single weapon now: but as it was, he could approach the house behind the pine trees with all the happy confidence of a blackmailer with irrefutable proof in his pocket.

Marcel saw him coming up the long, winding path and instantly thrust the novel that he was reading under a pile of papers on his desk. He took up the attitude of a man thinking and bowed himself over a sheet of virgin paper. From the corner of his eye he could see Alain appearing, vanishing, reappearing among the trunks of the umbrella pines; then there was the sound of the door and Louise’s loud, harsh voice—the loudness of surprise and the emphasis of welcome. Then her voice dropped suddenly, and as she tiptoed creaking through the hall with Alain Marcel could hear her whisper and in his mind’s eye see her significant gesture toward the study. He heard the furtive closing of the drawing-room door, and when he had waited five minutes or so he got up and went into the hall. He called Louise, and when she came he said, “Oh, there you are: do you know where my old red notebook is? I have looked for it everywhere.”

She said, “It is on the top bookshelf, I think. Alain has just come.”

To her, privately, he made a martyred face, but aloud he said, “Oh, I am so glad. I had just finished my work.” He pushed past her and went into the drawing room: Alain came forward from his place by the bookshelves and shook him warmly by the hand. “I was just looking for the English translation of your book,” he said.

“I do not keep it there any longer,” said Marcel. “I was afraid it had a little air of ostentation, you know?”

Louise left them after a little while: she was due to go to Saint-Féliu, as Alain knew very well.

“Am I not Machiavellian?” said Alain to himself, with a feeling of excitement as if he were playing a dangerous game, but playing it well and with a reserve of strength unknown to his adversary.

He had been talking for some time about Marcel’s books, always harping on the English translation: Marcel seemed pleased on the whole, but he was reticent when the translation was mentioned; he tried, not without skill, to lead the conversation in other directions. Now, during a pause, he was beginning to think that Alain was not as agreeable as he had supposed, and that perhaps he would get rid of him on the plea of an urgent article.

Alain, equally silent, was wondering whether this was not the moment for a direct attack; he wondered, too, whether Marcel had not already seized his drift—whether perhaps (with a sudden inner chill) he had not some prepared defense. He looked thoughtfully at him: Marcel looked very self-contained, somewhat withdrawn, sure of himself, detached: it was disturbing. But this detachment arose from a cause that Alain could not suspect. Marcel was devoted to his own person: he could not think himself handsome—the looking-glass denied it twenty times a day—but still he was devoted to it, and this devotion extended even to his own smell. Often, when he appeared to be listening, to be listening with a certain abstraction of mind, meditative, critical, and aloof, he would be taking secret gusts of himself, bowed over his own bosom; and he would draw a more real satisfaction from this than from many an acknowledged sensual delight. How could Alain divine that this was the base of the silence that weighed heavily now in the cool and darkened room? He could not, and the silence grew heavier and to him more formidable. He was beginning to feel unpleasantly nervous, and abruptly he pushed away his chair, took two or three turns up and down the room and came to rest at the open window: his back was to Marcel now, but still his voice, low-pitched and conversational, was perfectly audible in the room.